MANY of us have had nightmares in which we find ourselves on stage, in front of a huge audience, with no script, no cues and absolutely no clue what we’re going to say next.

What is a terrifying fantasy for most people is a daily fact of life for comedian Ross Noble.

When he takes to the stage for his sold-out show, Tangentleman, at the Wyvern Theatre on November 16, he will have no more of an idea what he will say than the man sitting in row Q.

Q Anyone who’s ever seen your work before knows it’s not exactly what you’d call structured. Is there any point in asking what people can expect from Tangentleman?

I think what I try to do is do the show that I would want to see if I went to see somebody live.

I like to keep it interesting for the audience, and I like to keep it interesting for myself.

I’m naturally quite playful in the way I approach life, and that’s what I try to bring to the live shows.

Q What that means is your show is basically different every night. Do you get people who come back again and again?

Yeah, some do. The way that I work, I go on stage and I improvise stuff.

Somebody might say something that will spark five or 10 minutes or more of improv, and then out of that 10 minutes, there might be one nugget of an idea that I like, which I’ll maybe expand and kick around next night.

The best way to describe it is some comedians write out lists of words, to remind them what to say, whereas my show is like taking a bucket full of cartoon characters and melting them, then taking that melted cartoon sludge, putting it in a water pistol and firing it into the air.

Q With a scripted show, comics will often leave their best material to the end. Do you ever worry that you might finish on something that doesn’t work?

That’s why my shows are so long. ‘No, that’s not good enough to end on. I’d better do another five minutes. Is that good enough? No. Five more.’ But in terms of ending the show, I’ve probably started 10 different stories, so I’ve got to try and get back to them to wrap them all up. So the problem I normally have is remembering all the things I’ve started.

Q You say your shows can be quite long. How do you know when to finish the show? Are you able to keep track of the time?

Because my tour manager is at the side of the stage tapping his watch, going “Come on, come on. You’ve had your fun”.

Q People have also taken to leaving items on stage during the interval that you interact with later on. What kind of stuff do they leave?

I have no idea where it started, but people just started giving little gifts on the stage.

Then it just became a thing where people tried to outdo each other.

There are some nights where there’s so much I have to get a broom and just push it all off to the side.

When people make stuff themselves, that’s amazing – the best one I ever had was somebody made me a proper suit made out of bubble wrap. It was great.

And people leave vegetables that they’ve carved into the shape of my face, stuff like that.

But I have to be careful, otherwise I’ll suddenly discover that I’ve done an hour of just talking about the stuff people have left on stage.

 Ross Noble’s Swindon show is sold out. For tickets for other dates on the tour visit rossnoble.co.uk.